SBUndercover in its new generation infancy is being read by over 300 unique readers per day (I guess some South Bend Forum publicity wasn’t bad). That’s more than the first SBUC ol’ Pete had going was doing in the Tom Fautz era. I would suffice it to say based upon word taking place in the halls and on the back ramps this past week that Pete heard a bunch of talk ALLLLL about SBUC.

All I can say is, thank you. You officers deserve to have a voice, and South Bend residents have a right to know why morale and operations is the way it is. In both cases, you can place blame on inept leadership, passive decision making, and general apathy. Patrol officer morale and DB morale is so beat up that showing up to work is about the maximum effort expended by the rank and file every day.

I sat in a meeting in early 2010 where a knowledgeable person described the SB force's structure. According to him, the City is divided into 18 policing zones. Each of three shifts has an officer patroling each of these 18 districts. So basic arithmetic shows 54 patrol officers.

Again applying basic arithmetic, roughly one out of every six SBPD employees patrols the streets of South Bend.

Back when Leucke & Company were whining when more responsible property taxation was going to cut "services" (translate this euphamism to "spending", with a chunk of it going into the coffers of the local Democrat Party), the Tribune ran a front page article where even Mishawaka's mayor was pissing and moaning over cuts in Socialistic programs. Anyway, this article mentioned that SB is spending over $25,000,000 anually on policing if this Old Fud's memory is still worth anything.

Anyhoo, if OldFud's trusty calculator is working OK, South Bend is spending close to $463,000 per beat patrolman -- by 2009 figures.

Perhaps someone on SBF can either debunk or substantiate this information.